


white house on the hill

by amorekay



Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: Code: Secret Santa 2019, Developing Relationship, F/M, Memories, New Years, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22089907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorekay/pseuds/amorekay
Summary: “After you, Princess,” Ulrich says, cutting into her thoughts. He’s holding the door open with all the air of a dignified knight, though the act is broken when his face splits into a grin. She shakes herself from her thoughts and sends him a soft smile in response.“My hero,” she says, an old and familiar exchange, but this time Ulrich’s cheeks tinge pink. Her own stomach flutters briefly with butterflies—it’s new and recent, this way she feels around Ulrich sometimes, and she’s been holding that feeling closely and carefully, waiting to put words to it.
Relationships: Aelita Schaeffer/Ulrich Stern
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	white house on the hill

**Author's Note:**

> My Code Secret Santa gift for make-them-laugh! This ended up being a New Years gift instead of a Christmas gift (I'm sorry for the delay!!) so I worked it into the premise of the fic. I took your desire for post-hs proposals & made it into a ... proposal of a sort, that fit into this time period of them navigating something new&fresh. I hope you enjoy it (and have a wonderful 2020)!!
> 
> I listened to [Everything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9mYgkBBs_s) by Ben Howard a lot while writing this.

Jeremie had given Aelita her present before he left to see his family for the holiday break—the deed to her parents’ house, in her new name. “It was yours,” he said, matter of fact. Aelita had teared up. She was staying behind with Ulrich this break, and suddenly she had the most important task in front of her: cleaning up the Hermitage. Her old home made new again. 

But now, standing in front of the Hermitage on the last day of the year, it seems like more of an undertaking than she’d expected. Next to her, Ulrich crouches down and scoops together a few handfuls of the fresh, late December snow.

“Not enough to make a snowman but I bet we could make something,” he says. “Don’t tell me if you can’t figure out what it is, Odd’s the only one with artistic talent.” Aelita laughs and crouches down next to him to gather her own snowpile. 

In the end, they end up with a small and lumpy amalgamation of a figure—an elf. Mister Puck. He belongs here at the Hermitage, overlooking the entrance, Aelita thinks. Her heart only pangs a little looking at him. She bends down one more time to press her fingers into the snowball of his head and trace a little smile onto his face. “There,” she says. 

Ulrich steps back and frowns. “It’s a good thing Odd took Kiwi with him, he’d definitely use this to do his business.” Aelita covers her mouth with a smile. 

“Guess we should go inside and get started, right?” Ulrich says, looking up at the house. He pauses and pulls his phone from his pocket. “I still always expect to get a message from Jeremie about XANA whenever we’re here.”

Sometimes she feels the same way, like she’s waiting to feel the pulse of an activated tower beneath her feet, even here in the real world. Sometimes she dreams she’s back on Lyoko. But it’s been three years since they destroyed XANA and shutdown the super computer for good. Three years since her father sacrificed himself for the defeat of an AI he’d built himself—three years since she really did become an orphan. A real girl, and a real orphan. Aelita curls her fingers against her palms. 

“After you, Princess,” Ulrich says, cutting into her thoughts. He’s holding the door open with all the air of a dignified knight, though the act is broken when his face splits into a grin. She shakes herself from her thoughts and sends him a soft smile in response. 

“My hero,” she says, an old and familiar exchange, but this time Ulrich’s cheeks tinge pink. Her own stomach flutters briefly with butterflies—it’s new and recent, this way she feels around Ulrich sometimes, and she’s been holding that feeling closely and carefully, waiting to put words to it. She steps through the doorway. 

Sometimes when she walks into the front hall of the Hermitage, for a moment she can almost trick herself into seeing the place of her childhood: her father shuffling papers, her mother humming to herself at the window, the smell of book pages and pipe smoke. Little fragments of memories that keep flooding back to her over time, making that thing always bittersweet and desperately _wanting_ flutter painfully in her chest.

The heavy, distinct smell of mildew and dust always brings her back. “Aelita?” Ulrich asks, from beside her, his hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s nothing,” she says, and sends him her best reassuring smile. “It’s just always a little strange to be back here, that’s all.”

Ulrich puts his hands on his hips and frowns. “We better get started, I guess. This place is worse than our dorm room when Kiwi destroys it.”

They haul things downstairs, and stack broken furniture, and wrap up moth-eaten curtains that barely keep out the light, and inhale clouds of dust coughing and sputtering when they unearth old treasures from her father’s collection, and finally call it a day, sitting on the floor on a blanket Aelita had found tucked back in the corner of the linen closet, less worn by time than most of them. 

“What are you going to do after Kadic?” Ulrich asks, like he’s been holding on to the question for a while. He’s frowning down at the floor, picking at the fraying corner of the blanket. 

“I don’t know,” Aelita replies, thinking. “Jeremie wants me to enroll with him at a school for technology, and then work together in the field. He’s been talking about it for a while, and I think it sounds nice. But…” she smoothes out the patch of the blanket she’s been bunching up, “Maybe I want something just for _myself_. I found music and DJing, but… can I do something with that? I’m scared if I go and enroll my whole life will be planned out by other people.” 

“Tell me about it,” Ulrich says. “My parents still want me to become a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant or something. ‘You must have a stable career’ and all that. But I’m totally useless at school, even when I try. How do they expect me to do any better at a university? Most of the time, I just want to run away from it all. I hate their expectations.” 

Aelita understands the feeling. Ulrich sighs. “The only thing I’m good at is sports and fighting XANA, and that’s something no one’s ever going to believe, even if I did try to tell them.” 

Aelita laughs, softly. “It’s almost as unbelievable as a real girl stuck in a virtual world for all those years.”

“Yeah,” Ulrich says. He pauses. “Um, Aelita, are you okay?”

Aelita blinks back the tears suddenly threatening to spill. “Sometimes I just don’t know what to do. Because of my father I spent _years_ on Lyoko, and my whole life changed. And now I’m—I’m still nobody, I’m a pretend cousin with a fabricated life that Jeremie made for me. I don’t have anything that’s mine. Even this house, now, it’s full of _so many_ memories. Maybe that’s why it feels so…”

She trails off, looking down at her hands clenched into fists. She doesn’t know what she’s trying to say. The house creaks as wind picks up outside. Ulrich wraps an arm around her shoulders and she leans into his side, and rubs at her lashes. 

Ulrich starts talking, his words jumbled like he’s rushing through it before he can stop himself. “Hey, maybe—we could take a year off. I could pick up odd jobs and you could do your DJing, wherever we end up. You’re a genius but who knows if I’ll even get in to university, so I might as well start working now.” 

Aelita looks up at him. His face flushes slightly. 

“Maybe it’s a stupid idea,” he says. 

“I don’t know,” she says, thoughtfully. She turns the idea over in her head, until she can start to see it take shape: her and Ulrich, traveling away from here, seeing other places that she’s never seen, following the music scene or even a silly whim, like something she’s always dreamed about but never thought she could actually reach. After all, she owes everything to the four of them, here. She would never think of leaving. 

But maybe this is what she needs. 

“Ulrich,” she says. “Will you go traveling with me, when we graduate?” 

“Really? Do you—but it’s a stupid fantasy. We can’t really make it work. Besides, my parents…” 

“Didn’t you say you wanted to get away? We can start making plans now, we have time to figure things out before graduation.” She turns around to face him, his arm dropping from her shoulder. She reaches out and clasps both his hands with hers. “If it doesn’t work out, we can come back. But doing this with you sounds nice.“

“My parents are going to be so pissed at me when I tell them,” he says wryly, and Aelita doesn’t miss the undercurrent of nerves in his voice. She squeezes his hand tighter in reassurance. 

Maybe this is what they both need. A chance to be their own people in a new place, without all the memories and ghosts and expectations hanging over their heads. “We’d come back,” she says, “after a year. After all, Jeremie and Odd and Yumi are all here, and my home, the Hermitage… but just for a little bit. I’d like to get away, and see the rest of the world.”

“Okay,” Ulrich says. He squeezes her hand back. A blush rises high in his cheeks. “Maybe you’re the knight in shining armor, Aelita, saving me from a miserable time with my parents’ expectations. Something that I didn’t have the courage to do myself.”

“I think you’d make a very handsome prince,” she teases. He blushes more. 

Suddenly inspired, she leans forward on her knees and presses a kiss to his cheek. He blinks in surprise as she pulls back. “Happy new year, Ulrich.”

Here, in this house with echoes of every important thing that’s ever happened in her life, Ulrich closes the distance between them again and kisses her. His hands are solid in hers and his lips chapped and warm, and it feels right. 

She thinks about the future, laid out ahead of them with all the choices in their own hands, and she feels free.

“Happy new year, Aelita.”


End file.
